Our parents, Chanan and Miryam Yaakobovich, had their eldest daughter, Bracha, at Ha’Emek Hospital in Afula in the year 1947. They were 18-years-old immigrants who had survived the Holocaust and arrived to Mandatory Palestine all alone a few months earlier. According to my mother’s testimony: “In 1947 we had a baby girl at Ha’Emek Hospital in Afula. A few days afterwards they brought the baby to me to breastfeed. I didn’t have milk. They yelled at me. One of the nurses said to me rudely: ‘Do you want your baby to die? Or that we give her to someone else?’ I cried. They stopped bringing me the baby. They said she died.”

My parents were released from the hospital with no death certificate and without anyone telling them where the baby is buried. Until the day of he died my father was angry at himself for not asking where the child was and for not demanding answers. He was frustrated that their helplessness as orphans, recent immigrants and Holocaust survivors was taken advantage of. All throughout his life my father tried to find the answer to the disappearance of my sister, and many times he was met with disdain and with attempts to silence the matter by the establishment.

Years afterwards, with the help of an acquaintance from the Ministry of Interior, my father managed to obtain the attached hospital certificate. Aside from this certificate, we have no other document.

The document is attached as well as a poem and a paragraph written by my mom.

Country of origin: Poland, Hungary

The official who announced the death: unknown position - S. Davidson

Date of kidnapping: March 3, 1947

Thank you very much,

Ronit Feingold

Daughter of Chanan and Miryam Akavia (Yaakobovich)